Wordcount: ?+
She could feel the weight of the woman's eyes upon her, although she dared not meet them. There was power within her dark companion - Some deep and thrilling thing that China could not grasp with her tainted, frail mind. Her instincts were frayed by stress and the repetition of near-death; They could no more detect what it was about the woman that soothed her than the girl's wet button nose or her deep, haunted eyes.
Regardless, it seemed to China that she was dreaming, yet awake - This forest was only as real as the thoughts that circled in her head, and the dull ache of pain across the burned pads of her fingers. Abolishable, by a shutting of the eyelids, or a shriek or shout. There was only one place in which she felt totally real, and not a wisp of a ghost or a few notes of music on the breeze; When she was with Itachi, she felt real. When she could feel her blood run warm, her heart beat faster, she new she was truly alive.
The woman's voice caused her large satellite ears to perk up, swelling their cups in her direction to catch the lovely sound. Nervous eyes of soft eggshell blue lifted quickly to the misty hues of the face and fell away again, bony shoulders lifting up in a selfconscious shrug. A shadow prince had stolen her voice; A wicked Queen had kicked it out of her. Such tangible faults mattered only in passing to the mute songbird - She wouldn't dwell on them. Couldn't.
Engorged pupils followed the gaze of the other as she searched the nighttime darkness, her words foreboding. An ominous shiver rippled through the little silver nymph, her rounded eyes full and gullible as they soaked in the words of the wise woman. The Hunt. Her lips mimicked the shape of those the witch had taken, soundlessly whispering the title of a horror that she did not know. Wary as she was of the stranger, she seemed a much more welcome danger than whatever lurked in the darkness beyond her fire. China crawled closer, leaving a smaller distance between them before she tucked her knees up to her chest, and curled the dun hide closer about her. Innocent yet terrible old eyes looked again to the woman, seeking more knowledge that she could absorb. Her voice was pleasant enough, her company moreso; It seemed China had grown tired of her self-confined solitary imprisonment.
.china-x01 b {font-weight:bold; color:#000000; letter-spacing:1px; }
.china-x01 .ooc { font-style:italic; padding:0px; font-family:verdana, sans-serif; font-size:11px;}
.china-x01 p {text-indent:25px; padding:5px 10px; margin:0px;}
.china-x01 {margin:0px auto; width:450px; background-color:none; background-image:url(http://i1047.photobucket.com/albums/b47 ... /vine3.png); background-position:bottom center; background-repeat:no-repeat; border:none; padding: 10px 0px 20px 0px; font-family: georgia, sans-serif; font-size:11px; color:#111111; line-height:16px; letter-spacing:.5px; text-align:justify;}
</style>[/html]